LI couple sues Cablevision over storm credits

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Last Updated: Wed, Nov 14, 2012 22:15 hrs

A Long Island couple is suing Cablevision, saying the cable company should be offering automatic credits to customers in areas that lost service due to Superstorm Sandy rather than waiting for them to call.

Joclyn and Jeffrey Bard of Huntington are seeking class-action status for the lawsuit filed Tuesday at the New York State Supreme Court. They want damages from the company and an order that it stop billing for services it didn't provide because of the storm.

Sandy knocked out power in vast areas of coastal New York and New Jersey, taking cable service along with it.

The Bards' lawyer, Hunter Shkolnik, said the company doesn't let customers know that they have to call to get their credit.

"They know when you're on and they know when you're off. They monitor this," Shkolnik said.

In a statement, Cablevision Systems Corp. says the lawsuit "misstates the facts and is without merit ... We have an extremely broad and customer friendly credit policy following Sandy. Blanket or arbitrary credits for cable outages could shortchange customers because each case is different."

The Bethpage, N.Y., company also said that customers can register an outage online rather call to get their credits.

Time Warner Cable Inc., which also serves the area, said last week that it would apply automatic credits in neighborhoods hit hard by the storm. Both cable companies issue credits for power outages.